November 26, 2012

The “pro-life” movement has become a joke. I simply can’t
take it seriously. Case in point: LibertyUniversity is again taking
the Obama Administration to Court. Fox News reports:

“The school is challenging the constitutionality of the part
of [the Affordable Care Act] that mandates employers provide insurance and
whether forcing insurers to pay for birth control is unconstitutional under the
First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause.”[1]

If abortion
is murder, as the Liberty
crowd believes, then it should be doing all it can to support the
administration’s requirement that insurers pay for birth control. Simply put, when women
have free access to birth control, they have fewer unwanted pregnancies. And when
women have fewer unwanted pregnancies, they have fewer abortions.

A
recent study concluded that—quoting an AP story reprinted by none other than
Fox News—“[f]ree birth control leads to fewer abortions.” The study tracked 9,000 St. Louis women who were offered free birth control. In what should have come as no surprise, these women had a significantly lower rate of unintended pregnancies than the general population. Teens in the study had especially low rates: “There were 6.3 births per 1,000
teenagers in the study. Compare that to a national rate of 34 per 1,000 teens
in 2010.”[2]

The study
further found that there were “substantially lower rates of abortion, when
compared with women in the metro area and nationally: 4.4 to 7.5 abortions per
1,000 women in the study, compared with 13.4 to 17 abortions per 1,000 women
overall in the St. Louis
region” and “almost 20 abortions per 1,000 women” nationally.

Sarah Kliff recently argued that better birth control methods—namely,
intrauterine
devices (IUDs)—are the most likely reason that the abortion rate has been
falling. (Yes, the abortion rate has been falling.)[3]
In the above study, women who used IUDs were 22 times less likely to have an
unintended pregnancy than women using the pill. All of which led one of the
study’s authors, Dr. Jeffery Peipert, to conclude that if women were given
access to free IUDs the national abortion rate could very well drop by half.[4]

Which is why I can’t take so much of the “pro-life” crowd seriously.
If they really cared about saving human lives, then they would take actions
that would actually save human lives.

November 24, 2012

According to IBISWorld,
an independent market research company, the average Walmart worker makes $8.81
an hour.[1], [2] This is less than workers make at many competing companies. The average cashier at Costco, for example, makes $15.50 an hour.[3]

Because Walmart workers make so little, many of them cannot afford
to buy health insurance. In 2009, just 52% of workers had employer-sponsored insurance. Given that Walmart has since increased
premiums and eliminated insurance for part-timers, this number is undoubtedly
much lower today.[4]

The company's low wages and inadequate benefits also affect non-employees. For instance, a 2007 study by the UC-BerkeleyLaborCenter concluded that its low wages drive down wages in
competing retail stores.[5] Its low wages also have the end result of placing a heavy burden on
taxpayers. Because they’re paid so little, a disproportionately large number of
Walmart workers depend upon such government programs as Medicaid, food stamps,
and subsidized housing.[6]

Many Walmart workers have in the past fought to improve
their situation by organizing, only to be stymied time and again. Human Rights Watch, among others, has documented how Walmart has employed
numerous tactics, some legal, some illegal, to deprive workers of this basic
right.[7]

2) Walmart can afford
to take care of its workers.

The Walton family is unbelievably wealthy, holding as much
wealth as the bottom 41.5 percent of American families combined. Yes, you read
that right: The Walton family holds as much wealth as the bottom 41.5 percent
of Americans families, that is, 49 million families.[8]

Scholars at the Economic Policy Institute have shown that Walmart
could easily increase worker pay while retaining its edge against
competitors. Walmart currently has a profit margin of 3.57%. If it reduced its margin
to its 1997 level (2.9%),it would still have a significantly higher margin than
Costco (1.72%). If Walmart took this money and gave it to non-supervisory
workers, each worker would receive an annual raise of 13 percent or $2,100.[9]

One study showed that if Walmart instead decided to charge
higher prices in exchange for higher wages, consumers wouldn’t be greatly
affected. If, for instance, Walmart bumped up worker wages to $12 an hour, the average
consumer would pay an additional $0.46 per trip or $12.49 per year.[10]

3) Walmart, therefore,
should take care of its workers.

Just elementary morality here.

4) Since Walmart refuses to take care of its workers, we must pressure it to do so.

And a boycott is probably the most effective way to do this.

* * * * *

Two Caveats: First, I feel the need to point out that this boycott isn’t intended to destroy Walmart. Rather, it’s intended to help Walmart workers and in so doing to make Walmart itself a better company.

Second, I don’t
think the poorest Americans should feel guilty for shopping at Walmart. It’s
true that Walmart has “Always Low Prices,” and people with limited means have
to do what they have to do to get by. But I think that those of us who can
afford to pay slightly more for, say, a second Blu-ray player, really should
make an effort to shop elsewhere.

* * * * *

One Counterargument: The
most common argument given by Walmart defenders is that Walmart’s low prices make
up for its low wages. Instead of dealing with that argument here, let me refer
you to Bernstein et al.’s “Tradeoffs
Between Profits, Prices, and Wages.”

[5] Specifically, the study found that between 1992 and
2000 every additional Walmart store that opened in a given county caused
overall retail wages to drop by 1.5 percent. “With an average of 50 Wal-Mart
stores per state, the average wages for retail workers were 10 percent lower,
and their job-based health coverage rate was 5 percentage points less than they
would have been without Wal-Mart’s presence” (Arindrajit Dube, T. William
Lester, and Barry Eidlin, “A
Downward Push: The Impact of Wal-Mart Stores on Retail Wages and Benefits,”
UC Berekely Center for Labor Research and Education, December 2007).

November 17, 2012

This has been the narrative of much of the mainstream press.
The New York Times, for example, stated earlier this week that Israel began dropping bombs in Gaza “after persistent Palestinian rocket
fire.”[1]
But, as Paul Pillar points out, “who appears to be retaliating against whom
depends on when you start the clock.” Although it’s true that Palestinian
militants often fire rockets into Israel,
it’s also true that Israel
regularly aggresses against those living in Gaza.[2]
The blockade itself is a continuous act of aggression, one which continues to
cause tremendous suffering among Palestinians.[3]

Pillar further points out that, while many media outlets
have stated that the recent conflict began when Palestinian militants attacked
IDF soldiers on November 8, these outlets have generally failed to mention that
the soldiers were attacked after they, buttressed by four tanks and a
bulldozer, invaded Gaza.[4]

Myth #2: Netanyahu
just wants peace; he only ordered the assault on Gaza
to force Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel.

If Netanyahu just wants peace, then it’s not clear why he
ordered the assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmed al-Jabari on November
14. Jabari’s assassination, you’ll recall, triggered Hamas to declare that “the
gates of hell” had been opened and to fire a flurry of rockets into Israel.[5]
We now know that on the morning of his assassination Jabari received a cease-fire
proposal from Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin. Baskin has for the past
few years served as a liaison between Israel and Hamas and helped secure
the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.[6]
Baskin recently learned that Jabari was interested in establishing a long-term
ceasefire with Israel,
and so he drafted a proposal with Hamas’ Deputy Foreign Minister, Ghazi Hamad.
Baskin believes that the proposal had a good chance of working, for, unlike
previous proposals, this one “included both a mechanism for dealing with
impending terror threats and a clear definition of breaches.” Israeli security officials
were aware of the proposal, and yet Israel assassinated Jabari on the
very morning he received it.[7]

If Netanyahu wants peace, then it’s also not clear why he
doesn’t end the blockade. For a strong case can be made that the blockade is the
cause of Palestinian terrorism. Just about any group that was daily subjected
to the brutality and humiliation of the blockade would respond by trying to
strike back at its oppressors. At the very least Netanyahu could ease the
blockade—e.g., by allowing more exports—when Hamas reigns in extremist groups. Hamas
has shown that it’s willing and able to reign in such groups, but Israel has given
it few incentives to do so. By reversing this policy, Netanyahu could do much to protect Israelis.[8]

November 2, 2012

I’m not a fan of Barack Obama. With regards to foreign
policy and civil liberties, his first term was in many ways a continuation of George
W. Bush’s second term. He escalated the war in Afghanistan. He escalated drone
attacks in Pakistan and Yemen. He tried
to keep American troops in Iraq.
He continued Bush’s policy of due-process-free indefinite detention. He did
absolutely nothing for Palestinians. In sum, he largely governed like a sociopath, and
if this were a just world he would be standing trial for war crimes.

But it’s not a just world, and Jill Stein doesn’t have a
chance of winning. Our choice is between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. And as bad
as Obama may be, I believe that Romney would be worse.

First, Mitt Romney’s foreign policy would certainly be more belligerent. Romney has sounded like a neocon throughout much of the
campaign, and, although he’s toned it down for the general election, if we want
to see how he would govern we need just look at his advisors. His inner
circle, Rosa Brooks writes,
“looks an awful lot like George W. Bush’s inner circle, mostly because they’re
made up of the exact same guys,” people like John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Robert
Kagan, Dan Senor, Eliot Cohen, and Eric Edelman. All of which means that a
Romney presidency might very well mean war with Iran. It might mean a return to torture,
extraordinary rendition, and CIA black sites, all of which Obama banned in 2009. A Romney presidency would certainly mean more
money for the defense industry.

Second, Mitt Romney would drastically weaken the social
safety net. Although he hasn’t released an actual budget, he’s made it clear
that he’s committed to balancing the budget without raising taxes and without cutting
Medicare, Social Security, or defense. As Ezra Klein points
out, “To make Romney’s numbers add up, you have to assume that by the end
of his presidency, Romney will have cut every federal program that’s not
Medicare, Social Security or defense spending by 57 percent.” Which means that
he would have to impose drastic cuts to programs that benefit the poor; we’re
talking things like “Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies and job training.”
Some estimates suggest
that “a Romney victory would deny health insurance to about 45 million [poor] people
who would have coverage if he lost.”

Third, Romney’s policies would certainly be much more
harmful to the environment. Obama hasn’t been great on environmental issues,
but, as Brad Plummer recently reported,
he “has taken a few modest steps to curb carbon emissions.” If we essentially continue these policies, we’re likely to see a decrease in carbon emissions by
as much 16 percent by 2020. (Obama also invested quite a bit in clean energy in the stimulus.) Romney, by contrast, has made it clear that he would not do
anything to reduce emissions.

Again, I wish we had a better choice. I wish Jill Stein were
a viable candidate. But she’s not. The American public isn’t yet ready for someone
like her. Which means that we have our work cut out for us. We need to continue working to educate people. But in the mean time, I’m voting for Barack Obama, whose policies will certainly harm less people than Mitt Romney’s.